1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate to a technique for updating firmware of an image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a monitoring system that may remotely monitor an operation state of an image forming apparatus, such as a printer or a multifunction peripheral, is used. In an environment of such a monitoring system, update of firmware of the image forming apparatus is performed in a manner described below.
Conventionally, if updating of firmware becomes necessary for reasons such as version upgrade or failure, a service person visits the customer's site and manually updates the firmware. Accordingly, the updating has been performed at a high cost.
Thus, recently, a technique for updating firmware by storing the firmware in a rewritable storage device such as a flash memory and transmitting the firmware via the Internet has been developed.
In connection with this, a system using such a technique has been proposed. According to such a system, reservation may be performed from the monitoring system described above, that performs remote monitoring. Further, an image forming apparatus in the system may access a server at regular intervals and confirm whether latest applicable firmware is present in the server.
Further, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-072761 discusses a technique used for a portable electronic device that updates firmware according to communication with an update server via a communication line. According to this technique, the portable electronic device automatically accesses the above-described update server at predetermined timing and transmits a signal requesting update of firmware. Since the portable electronic device includes a reception unit, the portable electronic device receives the firmware which is transmitted from the update server in response to the request signal. If the voltage of the battery power is lower than a predetermined value, the reception of the firmware is cancelled.
Further, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-091453 discusses a system that updates software used by an apparatus according to update information included in a user's electronic mail.
Regarding a system where an image forming apparatus accesses a server at regular intervals and confirms whether latest applicable firmware is present, the firmware confirmation time is input from the image forming apparatus. However, if a plurality of image forming apparatuses is included in the system, normally, the confirmation time is set to the same time and the server will be heavily loaded at that time.
Further, if the server has firmware to be applied, the firmware may be updated at a time not convenient for the user.